GENRE STORIES

Zen: .

Family drama: Fishing with his sons. “This is lame!” said the youngest. So he took out the dynamite, got their respect, and lost custody.

Classical: The poison taster gagged and writhed. The cook was executed before the taster could explain that he just hated coriander.

Historical: He stared at his tools. The bolts first? The pliers? That wouldn’t work. He sighed helplessly. Torturer’s block.

Bio: In works far ahead of his time, Mozart composed the operettas “Rollin’ in florins”, “Musket up yo ass” and “The Bitchiz of Figaro”.

Crisis Of Faith: Dress for the job you want, not the job you have, they told him. But the scuba tank kept knocking over the communion wine.

Prehistorical: As the meteor grew near, some dinosaurs rejoiced. They roared hymns, denounced the mammals, and awaited the Velocirapture.

Fable: The sparrow didn’t care that her chick was a changeling. “Fly, my pretty!” she said with pride, pushing the baby rhino from the nest.

Magic Realism: She followed the knife-thrower everywhere, always first on stage, showing off the scar where his knife had pierced her heart.

Overheared: It was New Years Eve in Zimbabwe. They raised their glasses. “Here’s to 2011. It can’t possibly be worse than 2012.”

Utopian Conspiracy: This tweet was the only way to get to you. Everyone else is in on it. CIA. FBI. They’re throwing you a surprise party.

Pop-Sci: “It’s okay to be shallow,” said the biologist. “90% of ocean life is in the shallows. It’s warm and bright.” The model just yawned.

Fable: The clumsy trap-maker always got caught in his own traps. “Here we go again,” he thought, as the ring slid onto his finger.

Conspiracy: Inside the hanger wasn’t a moon landing set. There was a stadium. Our minds reeled. The 2010 World Cup was faked.

Apocalyptic: Everything got gradually worse. People fantasised about a quick and definite end. Roland Emmerich made millions.

Horror: “Fish Fingers tonight!” said New Mommy. Jimmy looked at his plate. Scales. Knuckles. They weren’t what Jimmy expected. Not at all.

Speculative: To end racism, we found new ways to define ourselves. But a new power elite rose. Fucking Sagittarians.

Epic: He had The Call. He has a Love Interest, and an Antagonist, and the potential for Personal Growth. Unfortunately, he also had an Xbox.

Urban Legend: A string of cheese led up from the top of the pizza to the mouth of the guilty-looking waiter.

Ghost: Dripping walls. Patches of cold. Weird laughter in the night. On the plus hand, only 800 per month and close to varsity AND the pub.

Paradise Lost: He thought he’d finally found the ideal way of life in the nudist camp. Until he tried frying sausages.

Revisionism: Jesus made a famous statement about rich people and camels and eyes of needles. But he didn’t say “Heaven”. He said “Prison”.

Melodrama: “Forgive me for posing as your long-lost daughter, Brad. I’ll wear this wig no more. Before I die, just once, call me: ‘Father.’”

Metafiction: “Mr President, we’re on the brink of disaster. Our world is built on 140 characters and they’re non-renewable. When they run ou

Cringe: He did a German accent whenever he was nervous. He met his new boss Mister Müller, and panicked. “Top o’ t’ mornin’ to ye!” he said.

Steampunk: “The Analytical Engines must be purged!” said the minister. Too late. The compromising mimeograph was already at clickileaks.

Drama: He was miserable. “Puzzle pieces that were forced together are harder to pull apart,” he said. But she didn’t understand him. Again.

War: “They’re filling their trenches with poets,” said the German general. “We can play that game. Send in the mimes.”

Horror: “Wear this ring,” said the shopkeeper, “and all your dreams will come true.” They did. Even the one with the teeth.

Exposé: It was his first day as a copywriter. “Jesus Saves… With CostCo!” he said. It was his last day as a copywriter.

Comedy: He did the racist bit. The audience gasped. He paused, ready to launch the punchline, when the heart attack hit. He died on stage.

Historical: The man walked into the sultan’s tent, mistaking him for a fortune teller. The sultan screamed out a fortune. It was accurate.

Campus novel: “Strip rubik’s cube?” he suggested. She solved it in 23 seconds. He ran out the dorm in a panic of love.

Tech: The app made ethics easy. Product histories, informed decisions, clear consciences. No one asked why it kept saying “Buy Coke.”

Psi-Fi: Humanity unified telepathically. Finally we were of one mind. A mind filled with sex and arguments and kittens with poor spelling.

Black Comedy: “They’ll remember me now,” he thought, finger on the trigger. “I’ll be the Kurt Cobain of actuaries.” He was wrong.

Objectivist: His industrialist father had told him that the wealthy owed nothing to anybody. So, as his trust-fund grew, Atlas chugged.

War: He wasn’t that bright. He failed his driver’s test twelve times. But driving a tank means never having to check your blind spots.

Unnerving Children’s Haiku: Waldo is easy / But can you spot the ninja? / He Is Behind You.

Arjun Basu-Style: Two men sat on the bench. “Wouldn’t it be funny if we’re waiting for the same girl?” said one. But they were, and it wasn’t.

Allegory: He slept all day. His conversation left people drained. He avoided mirrors; they made him look unremarkable. And garlic was passé.

War: Christmas in the trenches. The two sides played football in no man’s land. Afterwards the English fans got out of hand, as usual.

Horror: Lovecraft stared at the page. During the fever he’d channeled a phantasmagorical tale of sentient beasts, and signed it “B. POTTER.”

Teen Romance: She watched him from across the cafeteria. He was so much taller, more confident, and better described than she was.

Chain Letter: RT This! A Joburg man RTed it and got 876 new followers! A man in Pofadder ignored it, but nothing worse could happen.

Self-referential: This tweey has exactly one hundred and thirty nine characters, two commas, one full stop and an obvious spelling mistake.

Historical: While trying to get a loan, Spartacus discovers he’s the victim of quite unbelievable identity theft.

Superhero: “Behold! This suit will let me move through solid walls!” He put it on, fell to the center of the Earth, and burned to a crisp.

Crime: He argued with the mechanic. Drove off without paying. Just as he hit 120, he noticed the tyre bolts on the passenger seat.

Childrens: Jimmy wanted to see the fire engines but mummy wouldn’t take him. Mohammad won’t come to the mountain, he thought, lighting a match.

Game: In the Sims 6, your character can meditate, transcend and become aware of its true nature: A bored person playing the Sims 6.

Horror Metafiction: Vampire romances suck the life out of all new young adult novels. They turn every new book into a vampire romance.

Cooking: Unfold bag. Microwave on high for 3 mins. Open away from face or steam will scald eyes, making Transformers II even less enjoyable.

Post-CS Lewis: After years of adventure, he was pulled up out of his underwater kingdom. He coughed water. The bully said “Flush him again!”

Horror Movie Trailer: 140 IS THE NEW 666. This summer, Follow the warnings. Follow your instinct. Just don’t follow… DeathTweet.

Fable: “Democracy is three wolves and a sheep arguing what’s for dinner,” said the crocodile to three sheep.

Infant mystery: Missing woman. Dame disappears right in front of me. Then, she’s back. No explanation, just the cryptic word “peekaboo.”

Sci-Fi: A giant prehistoric butterfly stood on Dr. Mandel, who by chance had doctorates in time travel, literature, chaos theory, and irony.

Advert: It’s hard to ignore where our food, clothes, and goods really come from. Time to disconnect. Conservol™ chemical guilt suppressant.

Arthurian: He swung Excalibur at the knight’s neck. It bounced off. Always sharpen a sword after shoving it into a rock.

Khakipunk: They look like us, sound like us. There’s only one way to test for real humans. I play the sokkie. His feet don’t tap. Uitlander.

Boy’s Own Adventure: Wilderness holiday. Stumbled on gun-running operation. Almost shot. No playstation. Bitten by spider. Worst hol ever.

Homoerotic thriller: The neighbours took him upstairs and showed him the body. He ground against it. Outrage. “Look, I’m not a cop, I’m the stripper.”

Dystopian Xmas Tale: The elves watched, listened, judged me naughty. They left me with sock full of coal. Coal, that used to be my foot.

Postmodern Seuss: “Last time I stole presents, what a mistake! A silly mistake for a big Grinch to make. This year I take the rhyme scheme.”

Electronic Voting Machine Instruction Manual: Press button. Walk away. Opening this machine and testing it for accuracy violates the patent.

Shakesperian Cyber-punk: There is neither good or bad, rich or poor, dream or real, me or you, but data makes it so.

Xmas story: Caucasian, 60-70 yrs, beard. Illegal immigrant. Breaking and entering, theft of milk and pies, “grooming” of minors with toys.

Postmodern Fast-food Romance: “I like men with red hair,” she said, frenching a fry and playing footsie under the table with his clown shoe.

Psychedelic Mills & Boon: The boudoir walls heaved like her bodice. Her eyes met all three of his, and she fell into his million arms.

Safari Sci-Fi: “This species of primate sits in metal boxes and watches the other species in the park. No one knows why.”

Dickensian: “As you see, no one attends your funeral- Hey! Is that a sports almanac?” “No!” said Ebenezer.

Orwellian Romcom: It’s the same old story: State loves girl, girl commits ThoughtCrime, State wins girl back in Room 101. DoublePlus Good.

Retro 90′s Occult Fiction: The thing attacked, but got tangled in its own parachute pants. I hit it with my gavel. “Hammer Time!”

8-Bit: Mistakes are fatal. There is no save. You forgot to pick up a key on level 3. Games will be more life-like, but never more like life.

Slapstick bildungsroman: He saw the banana peel and leapt over it, no longer a clumsy child, but a Man: A Man who hadn’t seen the low doorframe.

Self-help noir: She was an attractive broad. Now, she’s attracted six bullets to the heart. Negative thinking. Case closed.

Steampunk: Broken glass had fallen into the mechanism. The inspector sighed. What buffoon would install windows on a Thinking Engine?

Space Opera: “We have starships! We have AI and nanotech! So why do we still have a monarchy?” yelled a man holding a laser-pitchfork.

Beat: The Jazz sizzled out the radio and danced with the tap-tap-tapping of tires with stones caught like bad habits in the treads.

Enid Blighton: Jim, Julie and Jeff went to the beach and thwarted some human traffickers. The police said thank you, and they all had buns.

Cooking: WikiPancakes. You will need: Egos, flour, milk, oil. Mix ingredients together in any quantity (citation needed).

Fable: The peacock was extremely beautiful but could only squawk. Thanks to autotune and an aggressive MTV play cycle, he went platinum.

Grindhouse: “Show some backbone,” he taunts, so Kandi pulls out a whip made from the spines of the boys who’d treated her bad.

Sci-Fi: The AI spent its holiday on Windows XP contracting viruses and getting infested with spyware, and came back claiming enlightenment.

War: A shell goes off nearby, snapping him out of it. I was doing something, he thinks. There’s a pin in one hand, and something hard in th-

Spy: Agent V aimed his pen gun and fired. Nothing. Back at the QuikSpar someone tried to sign a receipt and shot a hole through the condoms.

Sci-Fi: 2037 – SETI discovers an interstellar data network. 2038 – Mankind posts its opinions in all caps. 2039 – Mankind gets unfriended.

Horror: “You used to love this before the accident. Now open wide,” said his daughter patiently, holding up a spoonful of crushed eyeballs.

Drug Fantasy: Red powder. Street name: “Skep”. It was only addictive because it made you sceptical. You didn’t believe it was bad for you.

Crime: So many tourists. That guy. Young. Nervous. Backpack. Perfect. Grab and ru- Shit! Let go! What’s in here? Pipes? Is that a deton-

Post Apocalyptic: Dan loved it. Free from civilisation. Raiding the camps, crushing the efforts of the rebuilders. Then the toothache came.

Cringe: On the cake were three figures. Bride. Groom. And the baker herself, holding a tiny model cake, so proud to be part of the ceremony.

Superhero: “Tommy” stood a hundred feet tall. Tin helmet the size of a ship. His nemesis strode at him through the mustard gas: “Fritz”.

Dark comedy: The passengers were tense. The pilots wouldn’t stop giggling. “We’re having unexpected… Hehehe… Engine issues…”

Dan Brown RipOff: Dr Sanders, the noted sociologist, examined the 10 rand note. There it was. The rhino. The secret mark of the Broederbond.

Barbarian: “Say your prayers,” said Ord the Avenger. “I was trying to!” said the Snake Cultist, sulkily pointing at the sacrificial virgin.

Kitchen Sink Drama: She couldn’t sleep. There were crumbs in the bed. Insignificant but irritating, like everything about him.

Vampire: “Be alert,” said Mayor Otto. “They suck the goodness out of things.” “Really?” said the hunter, hiding a worm-ridden apple.

Cyberpunk: “Can’t talk, going through a tunnel.” “Whaddaya mean? I’m right next to you.” “Yeah, but without net access, I can’t think prop-”

Love letter: You are the words “This Way Up” printed upside-down on the side of my life. I must turn it right, even if everything falls out.

Cyberpunk: “Call me 404,” says the man in the invisibility suit. “404 Not Found.” The general sighs. Tech always turns hard men into geeks.

Modern Fairy Tale: A Gnungl is a lesser imp, summoned by the sigil ” @ “. Althgh mstly hrmlss, it steals vwls frm yr sentencs.

Steampunk: The cylinder came through the pneumatic tubes. Hidden in a side compartment was a small wax recording disc. Blasted spyware!

Psychological Horror: She stroked her cat. A seam burst, and sawdust poured out. “I can’t let go of anything I love,” she said.

Philosophical:The bottom of the tyre couldn’t understand why the top curves upwards. Tyres need to curve down, to grip the road! No levity!

Romance: They stood outside the speed dating hall, scared to go in. “It never works for me,” he said. “Yeah,” she said. “Wanna get coffee?”

Sci-fi: Replicators could copy anything perfectly; gas, food, even other replicators. It was utopia. Then came copyright.

Western: “Looking for the man who killed ya paw? Dun’t think ya knew who ya paw was. Ya ma sure dun’t,” said the biggest mouth in the West.

Fantasy: He taps my head, and his memories flood me. And the memories of the one who tapped him, too. All the way back. Am I immortal?

Superhero Fantasy: Dr Z spat out a mouthful of coffee. It was luke warm. TOO luke warm. It had to be the work of his nemesis, Moderato.

Tragedy: They sat, hand in wrinkled hand, and watched the wide screen HDTV bought with their son’s life insurance. It seemed so blurry.

Prehistoric Fantasy: Ug held up the stick in wonder. The magic on the end glowed, flickered, spread to his beard, and hurt.

Comedy: Under pressure from the publishers to “sex things up a bit”, Leo Tolstoy adds a chase scene and shoot out to Anna Karenina.

Stream of Consciousness: The sun was a golden child. Olden child. Wrinkled hands. And old chill followed him home.

Legal fiction: The jury had been rigged. They all had ties to the Family. Every one of them a murderer. A jury of his peers.

Barbarian: “Not that way,” said Xanthia. “It’s blocked by Dark Priests.” A pile of them, actually, from when she had come in with an axe.

Clockpunk: A beast of copper and carved oak clawed out of the canal. The main spring on its back was as twisted as Da Vinci’s fury.

Tragedy: He landed the helicopter on the lawn. His daughter ran out to meet him. In joy, he held her over his head.

Fable: Narcissus lay on the broken glass, scared to move. He finally understood the difficulty of literally loving a mirror.

Erotic Horror: Fingertips touched the nape of her neck, stroked her shoulder, and brushed down her body, envious of its completeness.

Fairytale: Mary didn’t chew her food enough, so maggots ate her head, or, in the modern version, she was told off and given ice-cream.

Science Fantasy: The only thing between the Mollusc Men and the pastures of Azuria was Trevor of Venus, and a shotgun loaded with salt.

Martial Arts Fantasy: The invading soldiers fell. The temple had no floors, just ropes, and fighting monks who firmly believed in balance.

Afterlife Fantasy: There were harps. And clouds. The ghost of Richard Dawkins looked around, confused on many levels.

Gothic: “Do you really love me? Be honest,” said the inquisitor.

Biopunk: LEGA-C (TM) looks lovable, but inside, it’s so much more! Its mirror neurons(TM) let it love, mimic, and eventually, replace you!

Postmodern: This is the start of a story that you’re reading about a story that you’re reading that is coming to an end.

Poetry: If I could, I would express / The words that you could decompress / To infinite expressiveness / In 140 characters, or less.

Adventure: Red Dan watched the commodore’s ship being loaded. 500 rum barrels, each big enough to hold a pirate. Big enough to hold revenge.

Children: The wizard stole all the laughter in the kingdom and put it in a bag. Tears of laughter poured out, and washed the wizard away.

Postcyberpunk: The WikiConstitution worked surprisingly well, despite griefing from hacker-lobbyists and obsolete politician trolls.

Creation Myth: The Creator made too much, so invented a Carver to whittle things away. Unfortunately the Carver started at the source.

Urban Fantasy: I stopped at the lights. A newspaper vendor walked up behind me, stepped in something, and swore. “Bloody centaurs.”

Cyberpunk: The billboard auto-hacked my brain interface and adjusted my neurotransmitters, making me drowsy. I hate coffee adverts.

Horror: The stone suit pinched his skin until he bled. It wouldn’t stop until he picked up the tools to carve more of them, for his family.

TechnoThriller: “WW1′s biggest secret was the A-bomb prototype on the Lusitania,” the General said. “Yesterday, Al Quaeda learned to scuba.”

Detective: When she walked in the room, I knew she’d done it. I’d ruled her out before because of the pretty smile and the wheelchair.

Comedy: Outside the trailer was Deke, on the ground and moaning softly. He’d been trying to siphon the gas, but got the sceptic tank.

Fantasy: The Faerie Army were unstoppable. Arrows flew straight through them. In the end, we had to resort to our deadliest weapon: Doubt.

Ghost Story: Esther examined the exorcist she’d hired; stocky, grizzled, and in the moonlight, transparent.

Conspiracy Fiction: “And you haven’t told anyone else this?” said the human rights commissioner, closing the blinds.

Post Apocalypse: He paid for the water in iPod shuffles, which were so ubiquitous in the ruins that they’d become the local coinage.

Comic Fantasy: The Empire of the Cat-People, though formidable, was distracted by a very, very long piece of string.

Creative Nonfiction: Anne painted pictures inspired by the musician Ravel, who, like her, had a brain disease that manifested in creativity.

Magic Realism: The walls of our hut were made from a single unbroken ring of bark from the tree my grandfather spent his life chopping down.

Erotic: “Our order,” the Mother Superior confessed, “Has the most unusual habits.”

Alternate History: The border guard reluctantly accepted five million rands, and we escaped into Zimbabwe.

Crime: I regained consciousness lying in a circle of policemen, with the murder weapon in my hand and the shoe on the other foot.

Fan Fiction: “Thank goodness you’re here, Sam,” said Han. “Take the controls, and let’s see what this baby can do.”